What does rugby have to do with Apartheid? Apparently everything, according to the new Clint Eastwood film, “Invictus.”

As I walked through the movie theater lobby last week, ready to hunker down with my third viewing of “Paranormal Activity,” I spotted a poster for a movie coming out next week.

The poster displays a smiling Matt Damon in a rugby jersey in front of a shadowed Morgan Freeman, who’s turned away from the camera.

This image is the perfect example of cinema in the United States. This film is supposedly about Nelson Mandela’s use of the 1995 Rugby World Cup to unite a broken South Africa.

But this film is more about the heroism of Matt Damon, the white character, than it is about Nelson Mandela’s.

Why do movies about the incredible works done by black people around the world wind up really being about white people?

Why can’t we just have a wide-released film simply about the great things done by black people without involving white people as a vehicle for their success?

Nelson Mandela is not only an amazing man, but would be a great character in a film. Why not just make a blockbuster film about his life story? Why must we make this movie about white rugby players?

This is just the latest movie to commit the crime of stealing the accomplishments of black people and crediting them to white people.

“Mississippi Burning,” “Freedom Writers” and “The Ron Clark Story” are just a few tales that give whites more credit than the people who deserve it. On another note, look at “Last King of Scotland.”

While the Ugandan militaristic dictator Idi Amin wasn’t a hero by any standard, the American film about him became about his white Scottish medic who stood up against him rather than the thousands of black Ugandans who had the courage to do the same.

“Mississippi Burning” should have been the tale of the three men, James Cheney, Michael Schwener and Andrew Goodman, who were murdered while trying to register voters in 1964.

Two of them were black. The film wound up being about the two white FBI investigators of the crime who stood up for justice against the Ku Klux Klan.

“Freedom Writers” and “The Ron Clark Story” were films about white teachers who moved to different inner cities, won the hearts of their students and helped them progress in an otherwise bleak school setting.

My question is, where is the movie about the hundreds of black, Latino and American Indian teachers who stayed in the inner city to help their communities?

What the two white characters of these movies did was commendable. But why is this feat only film-worthy when white people accomplish it?

We need films in this country that portray black people not as villains, victims or comedians but as heroes. There are thousands of stories out there waiting to be told, but mainstream Hollywood seems uninterested.

Yes, statistically speaking, white people spend more money at the box office than any other race. But are white people so self-absorbed that we have to see films that stroke our egos as a people?

I sure hope not.

I would much rather get into the holiday spirit to see Nelson Mandela’s accomplishments on the big screen. He has enough accomplishemnts on his own to fill up a two-hour film, without the help of a white rugby team to pad the plot.

This just terrifies me about how Hollywood will spin the inevitable box office blockbuster on Barack Obama’s rise to glory. Will the film wind up being about Rahm Emanual or Robert Gibbs?

I hope for the best but expect the worst.

In a country where we have a black president, historical people like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Soujourner Truth, Lanston Hughes and countless other nameless heroes, we need to hold American movie-goers to a certain higher standard.

Even when films portray black people as football stars, it seems like their athletic glory is stolen by the white characters that helped them along the way. Point and case: “Radio” and “The Blindside.”

Both films are based on the true stories of people who came from difficult situations to accomplish great things on and off the field.

My advice: Stick to Spike Lee. He makes movies about black people who have real struggles but accomplish real goals.

So, after finals are over and you’re looking for a good film, I say don’t waste your money on “Invictus.” Instead, curl up on the couch and rent “Hotel Rwanda” or “Malcolm X.”